A variety of different pharmaceutical packages have been developed in order to store and control access to medication. For example, blister packaging has been developed in which one or more blisters are carried by a card with each blister housing a predefined quantity of medication, such as a pill, capsule or the like. In order to access the medication, a user may peel back a backing material so as to gain access to the interior of the blister and retrieve the medication. By storing the medication in one or more blisters carried by a card, a visible indication is provided to the user as to the amount of medication that remains available. In some instances, the predefined quantity of medication that is stored in a blister constitutes a unit dose, thereby facilitating administration of a proper dosage.
Pharmaceutical packaging must not only store and control access to medication, but at least some pharmaceutical packaging must also be child resistant in order to reduce the likelihood of inadvertent access of the medication by a child. As such, a pharmaceutical package that includes a card that carries one or more blisters for storing medication may also include a housing within which the card may be disposed. In this regard, the housing may be sized such that the card or at least that portion of the card that carries the blisters with medication therein may be slid into the housing and disposed therewithin such that the medication is not accessible while the card is disposed within the housing. In order to access the medication, the card may be slid or extended from the housing. In order to provide child resistance, the housing may therefore releasably secure the card therewithin such that the card cannot be freely slid or extended from the housing, such as by a child. Instead, the housing may be designed such that a user must squeeze or otherwise apply force to certain predetermined portions of the housing in order to release the card and to permit the card to be extended from the housing in order to access the medication. In one example, the opposite side edges of the housing must be squeezed toward one another in order to release the card.
While effective with respect to increasing the child resistance of the pharmaceutical package, these techniques which rely upon the application of force, such as a squeezing motion, to predefined portions of the housing in order to release the card from the housing, may be difficult not only for children, but also for other users, such as users having arthritis or other limitations upon the mobility of the user's fingers. Indeed, these pharmaceutical packages not only require the application of force, such as a squeezing motion, to predefined portions of the housing that may be spaced fairly widely from one another, such as approximately four inches apart from one another, but also require the user to pull or slide the card from the housing while continuing to apply the force to the predefined portions of the housing.
While the significant amount of coordinated mobility that is required to access the medication within such pharmaceutical packages is helpful in terms of increasing its child resistance, such requirements may also limit or otherwise make it difficult the access to the medication within such pharmaceutical packages by users having arthritis or otherwise having limited mobility with their hands. As such, it may be advantageous to provide an improved pharmaceutical package that continues to be child resistant, while also being more readily accessible to users including, for example, users having arthritis or other conditions that may limit the mobility of their hands.